The power’s been out for three days. And while this is no excuse to not post more often, my finals for the semester just ended and I’ve been sleeping more than 4 hours a night and boy, it feels good. A huge windstorm put a quarter of a million people in the dark. This makes it clear that wind warfare is the new terrorism. The slightest gust of breeze should be shepherded into Guantanamo bay instantly.
The power went out at 4.20 am on Friday the 15th. After almost freezing in my sleep, I woke up and decided to become a mallrat for one day in the nearest mall. But the mall too was down, and I was forced to seek greener pastures further south, in this hideous temple of capitalism, Metrotown. After some breakfast, I lurked in the library for half the day, surfing the web in 45 minute bursts as I contemplated my next move. A few calls to some of my friends and I spent the rest of the day shopping for Christmas gifts with Heather. Christmas shopping. Could there possibly be a more hideous sentence in the English language, one that combines two things I feel abyssal loathing for, Christmas and shopping? Anyway, it was still a better alternative than going back home to Antarctica.
The next day, after sleeping over at Heather’s place and a suitable brunch, I went back home and packed a few clothes and went to my friend Clio’s place, since we’d planned to go out to another friend’s birthday that night. After a night of intoxicated swaying to music I wouldn’t normally listen to, I spent the night on the couch at Clio’s. The next morning, after checking the utility company’s site quickly, I realized that the power wouldn’t be on until Sunday night. So the previous day’s pattern repeated itself, with me having a huge breakfast and keeping Clio company, while she shopped for Christmas gifts.
After a lazy afternoon spent at Ikea eating 50c hot dogs and trying to decipher Swedish diacritics, I headed home and the power was finally back at 6 pm on Sunday the 17th, after three whole days. Bivouacking at friends’ places is possibly the best way to spend a weekend, par none, even if the power outage made me a consumerist whore for an entire 72 hours.